Arkham City out NOW...please tag your spoilers!

I just picked this up last night, is there a certain place in the story that allows me to start interacting with the Riddler stuff? I see the question marks all over and I found some panels that connect to the trophy "cages" but I can't interact with anything.

I just picked this up last night, is there a certain place in the story that allows me to start interacting with the Riddler stuff? I see the question marks all over and I found some panels that connect to the trophy "cages" but I can't interact with anything.

Yes. It's not very far in, but you do need to progress the story a bit. It is some time after you have completed the church; I believe you receive a distress call to investigate that triggers the Riddler sidequest.

Sort of. Trophies out in the open can be obtained at any time (there's one in the cathedral you're meant to get your first time there). Slightly later you gain the ability to tag trophies that you can't reach so you mark them on your map to be gotten later. The cages all require various equipment to unlock the cages; some can be opened at the very beginning of the game while others require endgame utilities.

Best advice I can offer is not to worry much about the trophies and other sidequests much. The point of no return in Arkham City is far earlier than you expect, so you WILL beat the game with vast amounts of stuff still to do. Take what you can find, but don't sweat the rest. There will be a chance to clean up later.

I think he was pretty much as 'boss' like as you can get with the Riddler in AC don't you think? I mean, obviously he's never gonna go hand to hand with Batman. In AC you get to lay the smack down on him. It's like one REALLY LONG boss fight...

I think he was pretty much as 'boss' like as you can get with the Riddler in AC don't you think? I mean, obviously he's never gonna go hand to hand with Batman. In AC you get to lay the smack down on him. It's like one REALLY LONG boss fight...

I just picked this up last night, is there a certain place in the story that allows me to start interacting with the Riddler stuff? I see the question marks all over and I found some panels that connect to the trophy "cages" but I can't interact with anything.

Yes. It's not very far in, but you do need to progress the story a bit. It is some time after you have completed the church; I believe you receive a distress call to investigate that triggers the Riddler sidequest.

That's correct. I finally got around to playing this one myself, just started on it a few days ago. I found a number of the "scan the image to unlock" (like the giant question marks) riddles but none of them -- however obvious they were -- would scan; frankly, it was pissing me off (it isn't like I didn't have the tools to complete the riddle, it was simply that I hadn't progressed the story far enough, but they don't make this obvious at all). Once the side quest opened, I could go back and scan these riddles. I guess the annoying part is I'm easily distracted by side quests in this game and was a 'completionist' when it came to Riddles in the first game; so I just jumped straight into that role, ignoring the primary storyline for the most part, but their idea of pacing requires you to commit a certain amount of time to the main storyline despite the 'sand box' design of the world.

A tip/hint you might be interested in about how to uncover Riddler hints (I think the game makes this obvious, but I don't want to spoil anything just in case):

Spoiler: show

When you have the Riddler side quest, you'll be able to locate inmates around the city that are glowing 'green' -- you can see them with or without Detective Mode engaged. You'll have to eliminate the inmates hanging with them, and then you can Interrogate the inmate that is glowing (a command will pop up on screen to tell you when this is possible; it is 'Y' on XBox). Be careful not to knockout the green guy, just try to avoid him during combat until he is the last man standing. These are some of the Riddler's henchmen and they will unlock the location of a few riddles on your map. There are usually multiple henchmen per area.

I would really like to see one of these games dedicated to one or more minor characters, namely Catwoman, Robin and especially Nightwing. Batman is the obvious selling point and brand recognition, but a person can dream. A Nightwing game set in Bludhaven would be great, maybe have Batman show up as a side character (similar to Catwoman in AC) to give the marketing department something to work with (brainstorm: since Nightwing is the original Robin, maybe have Batman show up when Nightwing has some childhood flashbacks and you could play Old School Batman In Tights for those parts; Nightwing gleams some wisdom from something Batman did back in the day and goes on to kick @ss in the modern day, still being inspired by his mentor). You know... stuff like that.

I think AA has a better story, and the game is slightly more linear. AC is overwhelming at first, there's so much to do, and so many things trying to get your attention. You start playing the story, but soon you get lots of distractions, like a phone ringing, a guy yelling for help, a corpse that needs investigation. And then the many Riddles, they're very prominent but many cannot be solved without the proper gadget which you only get much later in the game.

Love both of them. I still play them sometimes, just to do combat challenges. I really love the combat in Batman, it's the only fight game where I don't have to button mash, but I actually know what I'm doing when playing as Batman.

I really love the combat in Batman, it's the only fight game where I don't have to button mash, but I actually know what I'm doing when playing as Batman.

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What I love about it is that the combat moves are incredibly smooth, and the transitions between the moves are seamless. I haven't really seen that in any other game.

Yeah, the closest thing I can think of is where they've taken the Assassin's Creed combat, with the emphasis on counters, then chaining kills, and having a lot of modifiers for the type of attacks you'll do, not to mention the variety of kills with different types of weapons. Batman is so fantastic though in that it's combat design is so simple, but also has a lot of depth is you want it.

I got the GOTY edition of this a while back and finally played through it. I got all 440 Riddler trophies, completed all the side missions, and found Catwoman's loot. Overall I'm very satisfied with the game. I'll go back and play Harley Quinn's Revenge at a later point. Just glad to finally have everything in the main story completed.

I really love the combat in Batman, it's the only fight game where I don't have to button mash, but I actually know what I'm doing when playing as Batman.

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What I love about it is that the combat moves are incredibly smooth, and the transitions between the moves are seamless. I haven't really seen that in any other game.

They aren't perfectly so. Sometimes, Batman et al. will suddenly shift to a new position by magically sliding along the ground and clipping through multiple NPCS so they're correctly positioned for an attack animation. A small graphical shortcoming.

The real shortcomings of the combat engine really show in the Mercenaries-like Riddler challanges.

Unlike a more advanced combat engine like in the DMC games, you cannot cancel an attack animation at any point, leaving yourself open to attacks that you see coming. Some of the fancy, canned attack animations last for a long time, and you're not invulnerable while the animation plays out.

The HUD is so minimzalistic, it is super easy to not notice that you're low on health. And the 'flash' when you've been hit is so short that you can often not tell if you've been hit or not. Terrible UI design there.

Batman/Catwoman can do these amazing leaps across large distances when stringing attacks together, but when you start an attack you can be an inch too far away, and the attack will not connect. When facing off against a group of enemies in front of you, the engine will often auto-target the one enemy that cannot be attacked (like the stun baton guys). And there's no reliable way to target a specific enemy for the instant takedown move.

None of this really matters in the game-proper, but get very annoying in the harder combat challenges.